ACMI + RMIT Audience Lab

The ACMI + RMIT Audience Lab invites game developers, filmmakers, moving image artists, emerging tech developers and individual creators to showcase their projects or products at ACMI and gather audience feedback.

A skills workshop delivered in partnership with RMIT is provided for all participants to share tools for getting the most out of the feedback they receive about their projects.

See current and past Audience Labs

Launched in 2018, the ACMI + RMIT Audience Lab has become an important industry pathway for developing, experimenting, and testing new works. Collaborating with ACMI’s diverse audiences, creators are offered a unique opportunity to engage face-to-face with museum visitors and receive real time feedback.

For audiences, this is a special chance to peek behind the creative curtain and see the process of game development and media production. By becoming playtesters, audiences help to contribute to the development of new screen works.

ACMI + Audience Lab alumni have achieved major industry success including: Australian Game Developer Awards, Game of the Year (Cult of the Lamb); D.I.C.E Awards, Game of the Year (Untitled Goose Game); Apple Design Awards (The Gardens Between); SXSW Sydney Showcase Selection (Gubbins).

By the numbers:

• 20+ ACMI + RMIT Audience Labs held since 2018
• 100+ projects playtested by more than 6,000 visitors
• 40+ awards and nominations for ACMI + RMIT Audience Lab projects

We love the moving image and are very open to different types of products eg. Dual channel video artwork, short form content developed for YouTube, interactive VR/AR. We are also interested in products that are at different stages in the development process eg. storyboards and scripts right through to final edits.

In addition to free use of the space, the Audience Lab program includes:

• A workshop on experience design for testing, and how to get the most mileage out of your research
• Operational support for your staff on the testing day
• Access to a range of audiovisual equipment
• Marketing support for the testing days

Keen to be involved?

Participants will need to provide:

• A concept, build or prototype to "exhibit" for audience testing (ideally something to best-test, or otherwise some way to provide feedback on a concept)
• Any specialised hardware or software required for testing
• Any conceptual materials required for testing
• Adequate team to manage testing on the day
• Promotion of their involvement in the event to audiences and stakeholders.

Our selection process

All applications are reviewed by selection committee comprised of ACMI and RMIT staff. The committee will be considering the following criteria when selecting successful applicants:

• Appropriateness and appeal to ACMI audiences
• Relevance and relationship to moving image and screen culture
• Team and product preparedness for testing
• Benefit of testing to team and product
• Fit within Audience Lab program as a whole, with a spread across ACMI’s core remit of film, television, videogames, art and digital culture.

Eligibility

To be eligible to take part in the Lab on the 7 June 2025 you must:

• Be available to attend a skills workshop at ACMI at 3-5pm on Thu 22 May 2025. The skills workshop will include an RMIT-led Evaluation and Testing education session and an ACMI-led session on engaging the public.
• Be available to set up and test your project at ACMI on Friday 6 June from 3-5pm, ready for the next day’s Lab.
• Guarantee a minimum of two people to be available from 10am-5pm on Sat 7 June to facilitate your project testing.